3D Color Surface Map for Material Property Encoding
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current additive manufacturing techniques lack a straightforward method to visually represent and distinguish different material properties of 3D objects, making it difficult to identify and replicate objects with specific non-color material properties, especially when original design files or parts are unavailable.
Innovation Solution
The use of a 3D color surface map to represent non-color material properties by dispensing fluid agents at specific exterior voxel locations, allowing for a one-to-one correspondence between colors and material properties, enabling easy identification and replication of objects with varying material properties.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If traditional additive manufacturing is used without color coding, then manufacturing simplicity is maintained, but the ability to visually represent and distinguish material properties is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies color changes by dispensing colored fluid agents at selective exterior voxel locations to represent different non-color material properties. Each color corresponds to a specific material property, enabling visual differentiation and information encoding on the object's surface without altering the underlying material structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses colored fluid agents as intermediaries between the manufacturing process and the final object. These fluid agents carry color information that mediates the representation of material properties, allowing the system to encode and communicate material property data visually without directly modifying the material properties themselves.
2Manufacturing precision
If color fluid agents are dispensed to represent material properties, then material property visualization is improved, but manufacturing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the exterior surface of the object into discrete voxel locations where colored fluid agents are selectively dispensed. This segmentation allows precise control over where each color is applied, enabling accurate representation of material property distributions across different regions of the object.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements local quality by applying different colors at different exterior voxel locations based on the underlying material properties at those specific locations. This localized color application ensures that each region's color accurately reflects its corresponding material property, creating a spatially varying visual representation.
3Ease of operation
If a one-to-one correspondence between colors and material properties is established, then material property identification is simplified, but the system requires more sophisticated color mapping
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a visual copy of the material property distribution by mapping colors to correspond with underlying material properties. This color-coded surface representation serves as a visual copy or map of the internal material property structure, allowing users to identify and replicate objects with specific material property distributions without needing to analyze the internal structure directly.
Data Source
AI summary
A device includes a material dispenser and a fluid dispenser. The material dispenser is to dispense a build material layer-by-layer, to at least partially additively form a first 3D object. The fluid dispenser is to dispense at least one fluid agent at selectable exterior voxel locations of the respective layers to at least partially define an external surface of the first 3D object as a first color to represent a first non-color material property of at least a first portion of the first 3D object. The selection of the first color is independent of characteristics of the first non-color material property.